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UBS announced a $3 billion share buyback plan on Wednesday and posted fourth-quarter profit that beat analyst estimates.
The big Swiss bank said it aims to buy back at least $3 billion in shares in 2026, adding that it aims to do more.
Net income attributable to shareholders increased 56% year over year to $1.2 billion in the last three months of the year. This exceeded analysts’ expectations of $919 million.
Overall, group revenue for the final quarter of the year was $12.1 billion, in line with analysts’ expectations of $12.1 billion. It also decreased from $12.8 billion in the previous quarter and increased from $11.6 billion in the year-ago period.
UBS stock was last seen falling 4.7% on Wednesday morning.
Morningstar senior equity analyst Johan Scholz told CNBC’s “European Early Edition” that the fourth-quarter results were another strong performance for the bank, which has been on track with its Credit Suisse merger.
But he cautioned that the bank’s share price still has a “slight overhang” due to proposed changes to Switzerland’s capital requirements that would require it to hold an additional $26 billion in core capital. Last month, Swiss Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter said she opposed a compromise proposal by lawmakers that would ease tough measures.
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KBW analysts said that while overall revenue was strong, it was disappointing to see net new assets of $8.5 billion, down from $37.5 billion in the previous quarter. Looking ahead, UBS expects its global wealth management business to decline by a low single-digit quarter-on-quarter in the first quarter of 2026.
Meanwhile, UBS’s Common Equity Tier (CET) 1 capital ratio, a measure of a bank’s solvency, stood at 14.4% in the fourth quarter, compared to 14.8% in the previous quarter.
The bank said its invested assets exceeded $7 trillion for the first time and it expects to meet its 2026 exit rate target through increased dividends and share buybacks.
Chief Executive Officer Sergio Ermotti said the bank’s global wealth management and investment banking divisions were performing well, with the former generating $101 billion in net new assets, and that the bank’s Swiss business was “performing strongly” despite the negative interest rate environment.
Acknowledging recent market volatility, including the sharp decline in precious metals earlier this week, Ermotti said that while there are no immediate major changes to asset allocation, clients remain cautious.
“They’re looking for protection, and they’ve been shying away from the technology sector a little bit lately,” he said in an interview with CNBC’s Carolyn Ross. “The volatility we are seeing and the rapidly changing geopolitical landscape on an almost daily basis has caused our clients to increasingly think seriously about diversification.”
He added that strong inflows to Europe and Asia helped offset weakness in the Americas, where outflows reached $14 billion.
Earlier, Ermotti, who returned to the helm of Switzerland’s largest lender in 2023 to oversee the government-led emergency takeover of beleaguered Swiss rival Credit Suisse, said the bank had made “significant progress” in “one of the most complex consolidations in banking history”.
